2022-02-17 – Today, being Thursday, is guitar class day. I learned the basics of acoustic guitar on my own and with my friend Ira back in high school. I’ve been playing off and on since then. More than 50 years. You’d think I’d be better at it than I am.

But it’s always just been a fun thing to do.

I don’t say that to minimize fun activities. I’ve always had a guitar I could reach for and pick a few tunes if I was sad or bored or happy and busy and just needed a break.

I’ve always been more apt to sit down to play  a tune on my guitar (or piano) than to turn a tune on my stereo (or, now, my computer). While I do like to listen to music, I prefer making music, even if my rendition leaves something to be desired.

Four or five years ago, I joined a group class at the Old Town School of Folk Music. It is an intermediate-advanced class in fingerstyle guitar. Every eight-week session, I find, maybe, one song that I want to continue playing. There would be more, if I could handle it. But I can barely handle one.

Ideally, I’d memorize the song and be able to play dozens of songs on request. But I can’t do that. So the special songs go into a blue folder so I can come back to them from time to time.

This session, I am on a bit of overload. We started with Eric Clapton’s Signe and, despite rhythm challenges, I managed to learn it pretty well. Then we had Moon River. I printed the music out for my blue folder, but I’m having a little trouble with it. Who knows if it will make the cut. Today we got the music for a Chet Atkins arrangement of Charade. It looks like a good candidate for the blue folder, too. But that’s potentially three songs for this session. It might be too much.

Class starts, via Zoom, in about 40 minutes, so I better tune up and practice a little.

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